Dr. Jeeyun ‘Sophia’ Baik leads AI Ethics

USD Professor named one of the top ‘100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics’ by Women AI Ethics

Lauren Ceballos / Feature Editor / The USD Vista

USD Assistant Professor Dr. Jeeyun “Sophia” Baik received the title of being one of the top “100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics,” according to the organization Women AI Ethics. Baik explained specifically what Ethics of Artificial Intelligence are. 

“Artificial Intelligence Ethics would be really about considering social, political and cultural dynamics that are playing in the conceptualization development, implantation and regulation of the merging technology, which is AI,” Baik explained.  “We can proactively think about not only the pros but also the cons of this newly developed technology and best address potential issues in those processes.”

Dr. Baik  also specified women’s roles within AI. She felt honored to be nominated amongst other “brilliant female scholars” who are emerging as exemplary scholars in AI. 

Abigail Cavizo, USD Junior, praised Dr. Baik’s accomplishment.

“She was a really effective professor…I am so glad that I had the opportunity to have her. She is so inspirational” Cavizo said.

Baik believes that there is “always work to be done,” in terms of the integration of women in AI.

“I still think there is room for improvement… because the makeup of scholars, the makeup of developers, the makeup of both policy makers really do matter in terms of what kinds of issues become prioritized…in the discussion in a conversation,” Baik claimed.

“AI is trained with existing data in reflection of the existing bias in society…male candidates or male professionals … earn more money than female counterparts even though they are pretty much doing the same thing in the same role so the data is being reflected in the training data which is then followed into how AI calculated any results or predicts anything so we have to make sure that those biases including gender bias, but not limited to the gender bias, should be considered, and one way to tackle this issue by having a diverse workforce and diverse voices in the community.”

Despite earning such an honorable title, Dr. Baik relayed that the process was not easy. She spoke of the struggles of coming to the U.S. with English as a second language while adjusting to discussion-driven classes, which are different from the education system in South Korea.

“At the beginning, there were many times I couldn’t speak up even once throughout the entire class period. At first, I was very frustrated. However, I was soon motivated to overcome the fear of speaking something ‘stupid’ in English and promised to myself that I would speak once this time in class. I increased the goal steadily to twice, three times, and so forth. By the time I was graduating, I was one of the most active students participating in class discussion,” Baik declared. “The experience really taught me the importance of trial and error as well as continued efforts in learning.”

Baik is originally from South Korea and came to the US in 2013 to attend the University of Southern California for her master’s degree in public diplomacy. She then went on to work at a Korean news media in Los Angeles, before earning her PhD in Communication at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Baik later went on to UC Berkeley as a postdoctoral scholar.

She explained her goals as an international scholar are derived in part due to the differences of ethics between America and other countries such as Korea.

“I would love to bridge those disconnects…because there is no border line when it comes to this type of technology and how it gets used but there are borders of different regions,” Baik shared. “I’d love to connect those gaps and discrepancies…so that we can basically have more collective intelligence and more understanding of ideas that each other may have.”

In her research, Baik studied technology’s impact, specifically on marginalized communities, including its impact on privacy issues concerning civil rights. She also studied platform content moderation and the approaches of Big Tech companies such as Meta. 

Throughout the peak of COVID, Baik studied data surveillance and privacy rights, in reference to phone notifications if someone in one’s vicinity had recently tested positive for the virus.

Baik joined USD last fall and is now teaching Intro to Media Studies, an International Media class and a Communication, Law and Policy class. Baik spoke of the classes she teaches. 

“This communication law and policy class that I am offering… actually was the dream course that I had always wanted to teach,” Baik expressed. “I am so fortunate that I was given an opportunity to teach it here at USD, because I’m trying to… make the legal and policy issues around media technologies less boring and more accessible.”

Baik elaborated on her love of the class because of how the laws and policies seem very formal according to many people, but how ultimately, they are a constant through the media that we use in our daily lives which she hopes to portray to her students.

Dr. Baik expressed the appeal of teaching at USD.

“I was really attracted to the fact that USD is really trying to grow a community on campus that can discuss, teach, and educate each other about these important issues and…USD is really student-oriented… and I really loved the teacher scholar model.”

Baik was originally brought onto USD’s campus as an Assistant Professor in one of the three clusters formed on the USD campus. The clusters had the goal of teaching while continuing ongoing research within their specific discipline while crossing over into others.